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Thread: Robert Lanza - Biocentrism ¿Zen? ¿Buddhist?

  1. #1

    Robert Lanza - Biocentrism ¿Zen? ¿Buddhist?

    Hi all, I wanted to share something I read which I found very interesting.

    http://www.robertlanza.com/the-bioce...cosmos-itself/

    I think this theory has a lot in common with things we believe and are taught, in buddhism and in zen.
    I haven't analyzed it very deeply but read it during a break at work and seemed interesting.


    Gassho, Daiyo

    #SatToday
    Gassho,Walter

  2. #2
    Hello,

    Thank you for the link.

    Life as it is.


    Gassho
    Myosha sat today
    "Recognize suffering, remove suffering." - Shakyamuni Buddha when asked, "Uhm . . .what?"

  3. #3
    Hi,Daiyo
    Thanks for the link,this is fascinating research.and does seem to me to have much in common with Buddhist teachings,Though I'm no expert.

    gassho
    Dave off to sit now.

  4. #4
    Thank you for the link. looking forward to reading it again, Gassho, David

    sattoday

  5. #5
    Hi Daiyo,

    In some sense, most Buddhists are concerned ... and not concerned ... about this. In other words, sometimes traditional Buddhists have professed very special views about the nature of reality ... and sometimes Buddhists have said that it is not important to our endeavor. I believe this very wise.

    We might say that ...

    If reality is biocentric, and life creates time, space and the cosmos itself ... chop would and fetch water, live gently in this life, live this life well.

    And if reality is not biocentric, and if life does not create time, space, the cosmos or anything else ... chop would and fetch water, live gently in this life, live this life well.


    In other words, whatever the case, we find ourselves with this life and in this apparent world ... best to live this life and treat this world the best we can.

    However, Mahayana Buddhists have also spoken of the deep, interflowing, radically intimate and intra-creating nature of reality as "Emptiness", which is actually a great Wholeness. We are just the world, and the world is simply who we are manifested. Ordinary human beings believe (in our ignorance) that we are born, live as a separate object in the world for a time, then die. In fact, that is so, but only from one narrow way of seeing things! From another perspective, we are simply the world manifesting a certain way at a certain place and time under certain conditions ... subsequently fading away when conditions change ... yet before, during and after, this world who we are goes on and on and on. A classic analogy is a sea of waves (of which we are one) rising and falling ... yet the waves are just the sea flowing, and as the waves rise and fall, the sea which we are flows along as waves come and go, waves following waves. Waves are just the sea water flowering, sea is just flowing as waves, we are each like a wave ... we are each just the waters flowing.

    Zen Buddhists have also spoken of "Mind" as not simply that which happens behind your eyes and between your ears, but a dance of what is inside and outside "you" so intimate that one should not really speak of "inside" and "outside" or "you" at all. For example, you may feel that you see a tree "out there", and photons of light from the tree enter the eyes, are turned into electo-chemical signals which are recreated as images of a "tree" somewhere inside the brain, which "tree" we further define with labels and categories such as "pine, tall, green, beautiful" etc. We may then act upon this information "outwardly" in the world, either hugging the tree, walking by or cutting it down. In any case, you feel that the "tree" is "outside you, but not you".

    But from another perspective, your life would be barren ... and, in fact, "you" would not be "you" ... without something to see. Just as your lungs need the oxygen created by the trees in order to breathe and sustain your life, your eyes and brain need trees and a world of other things to see in order to have a mental life. Furthermore, the trees need the carbon dioxide you exhale in order to sustain their life, and likewise "trees" would be but naked atoms undefined and photons adrift and unseen without the human eye and sentient brain to give them definition, as "tall, green and beautiful etc." We bring the life and subjective experience of this universe into what would otherwise be an unlived, unseen, unexperienced and pretty blind place. We are, quite literally, the LIFE OF THE PARTY!

    In other words, what we encounter as the reality of this universe is truly this incredible dance of things seen, experienced and defined by us, a flowing in and out ... "you" dependent on the trees, air and stars (you could not exist without all that, and in fact, are made of elements forged in the stars, needing the air to breath and the earth to walk upon) ... and this universe and world would be pretty cold and lifeless without sentient beings like us to experience it all. Thus "Mind" is not just what is happening behind the eyes and between the ears, but is this incredible dance of the "world out there" (assuming, of course, that there is a "world out there" at all, and it is not all a dream ... I don't think so, but it really doesn't matter to the equation) flowing in through the senses, experienced by us, whereupon we live and act. The trees, air and stars, molecules and photons and other creatures and sentient beings are just "you" too in an incredible interflowing dance.

    A key aspect of Buddhist Practice is to get beyond our sense of "separate self", and to realize that we are this wonderously whole interflowing. Then, we just "go with the flow" that we are all along.

    When we "chop wood and fetch water", we bring this universe (at least the one we find ourselves in) to life. In a sense, when our eyes see and our arm chops the tree, it is just this Whole Flow of the universe seeing and chopping itself (for the tree is this, and we are just this, and the chopping is just this). In a sense, when the "bottom drops out of the bucket" (when, in Zen terms, one has an experience in which the separate sense drops away), one experiences that ... not only does the ocean hold each and every drop of water ... but that each drop of water contains the whole ocean!

    It is actually not so important that we know all the details of what is this "whole flowing" in order to realize emancipation. We can leave that to the physicists, theologians, philosophers and myth makers ... for our Zen Way is a bit different. How to explain? Perhaps we are more like sailors than physicists etc.

    The sailor just sails his boat, tasting that sea and sun and wind and sails and sailor are one. He does not need to know the extent, composition, chemistry or source of the whole ocean or the Latin names for all the creatures in it, nor the name of some Creator if any, nor whether there is a heaven above or hell below (he leaves that perhaps to the ocean biologists, chemists, priests and preachers, legend writers and map makers), but is content to sail this bit of ocean right here, the water passing under his keel. He does not know the full extent of the sea, where it came from or where it goes, or the number of grains of sand on its every beach ... and yet, he can taste the whole in each briny drop, right where he dips his finger and on the tip of his tongue. All lands and all the stars are in each grain of sand and salt.

    The sea is me, the sea I see is sea seeing sea, "I" is sea me seeing seaing, and here is me to be and see the sea. Good Sailing!

    Gassho, J

    SatToday
    Last edited by Jundo; 03-18-2015 at 03:25 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  6. #6
    Thanks Jundo. This is good stuff.

    Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_

  7. #7
    Kyotai
    Guest
    Wonderful Jundo, thank you.

    Gassho, Kyotai
    Sat today

  8. #8
    Thank you Jundo and Daiyo.

    In wholeness,

    Gassho.

    Kyonin
    #SatToday
    Hondō Kyōnin
    奔道 協忍

  9. #9
    Much thanks to Jundo and Daiyo. Wonderful!



    "What I told you is true, from a certain point of view." Obi wan Kenobi :-)



    Gassho,

    Hotetsu



    #SatToday
    Forever is so very temporary...

  10. #10
    Mp
    Guest
    Great thread, thank you Daiyo and Jundo, now ...

    Chop wood and carry water. =)

    Gassho
    Shingen

    Just sat

  11. #11
    Thank you Daiyo for setting the stage. Thank you Jundo for the wonderful dance.

    Gassho
    Daizan

    sat today

  12. #12
    Yum, salt. Wee, wet. Sail on, dancing.
    _/st\_ Shinzan

  13. #13
    Thanks everybody for sailing/dancing along, and specially Jundo for the wonderful teaching.


    Gassho, Daiyo

    SatToday
    Last edited by Daiyo; 03-17-2015 at 08:06 AM.
    Gassho,Walter

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Jundo View Post
    The sailor just sails his boat, tasting that sea and sun and wind and sails and sailor are one.


    Matt
    #SatToday

  15. #15
    Jundo that was one of the most inspiring writings I have read in a long while. Thank you.
    Daiyo thanks for bringing this to the forum. I read about this in New Scientist and I read a bit of Dogen where he says thinking of linear time is a mistaken view. Time stays just where it is. Gassho Heisoku
    Just Heisokuing
    Sat today.
    Heisoku 平 息
    Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. (Basho)

  16. #16
    Gassho, David

    sattoday

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